


But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small

by twtd



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/F, No one dies though, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twtd/pseuds/twtd
Summary: Hecate and Pippa get suck at Cackle's during a quarantine. For Hecate, it brings back too many memories.It suddenly felt like the castle's stones were going to crush her under their weight. Most people might think the school quite large, during the school year, they rarely ventured far afield anyway, but Hecate knew intimately just how small a place it could be.
Relationships: Hardbroom/Pentangle (Worst Witch), Hecate Hardbroom/Pippa Pentangle
Comments: 17
Kudos: 104





	But then I remembered: the universe was closed, and so very small

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone's writing quarantine fic right now, right? I might as well join in. This is pretty angsty and only vaguely romantic but no one dies or even comes close to it.

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to stay here.” Ada smiled in understanding at Pippa as she reached out and rubbed Pippa's forearm, giving it a slight squeeze. The order had just come for the Great Wizard. A magical sickness was running rampant through the population of witching Britain and to prevent its spread everyone was to be quarantined where they were for the next two weeks. 

Hecate tried to control her facial expressions. It suddenly felt like the castle's stones were going to crush her under their weight. Most people might think the school quite large, during the school year, they rarely ventured far afield anyway, but Hecate knew intimately just how small a place it could be. A year ago, two weeks confined to the castle wouldn't have impacted her at all. She wouldn't have been able to leave if she had wanted to, one rationale for her confinement replaced with a second one, one more easily explained. Now, it felt like her lungs were being squeezed from the inside, robbing her of breath and making her heart pound. Two more weeks of her life lost within the castle walls. 

And she would have to play host to Pippa as well. It was her fault Pippa was even at Cackle's to begin with. She had come to help Hecate with a tricky potion that required two sets of hands. Ada had been too busy, and there was no world in which she would trust something so delicate to Dimity Drill of all people. Pippa had been her first thought, though the potion would take several days to develop. There hadn't been any indication that anything was amiss when Pippa had first come to Cackle's. Two days later they were trapped and Hecate was trying not to let Pipps see her panic. 

Hecate just wanted to be alone, alone to come to grips with being locked up once again, but Pippa was looking at her with shrewd eyes. 

"I can't say there aren't other places I'd rather be, but if I do have to stay here, and it seems that I do, I can't think of better people to be stuck with." Pippa returned Ada's smile then turned it on Hecate. She must have seen something on Hecate's face because her smile faltered, though Hecate wasn't sure anyone who hadn't known Pippa since childhood would notice it. 

"Well, if there's anything you need, you need only ask. Isn't that right, Hecate?" Ada turned to include Hecate in the conversation. Hecate cleared her throat and forced herself to smile too, though it came out as more of a grimace than anything. 

"Yes. Quite." Hecate swallowed and took a deep breath. "I'm sure you remember your way around the castle. If you'll excuse me, I have a class to teach." And thank the Goddess for that. Teaching was the one thing that might center her. She was the deputy headmistress of the school, after all. This was just one more challenge she would have to help the girls navigate through. They would be scared and nervous. It was up to her to set a good example. Ada and Pippa would be comforts to them. Hecate would see that discipline didn't break down. That was the way things were. That was the way things had always been. 

"Of course." Ada's smile was much more genuine. It looked like she wasn't concerned at all. That only made Hecate worry all the more. With a last look at Pippa, she transferred away.

* * *

For what felt like such a cataclysmic event, things carried on with remarkable regularity over the next few days. Oh, there was a nervous energy pervading the entire school that even Hecate's most stern glares couldn't contain, but her own nerves were drawn thin by her renewed confinement, her worry over the girls only yet another layer burying her deeper and deeper under the overwhelming stress of it all. 

Through it all, the girls' frayed nerves, the way they jumped at the sound of even the slightest cough, Pippa was a blessing. Her very presence calmed them in a way Hecate never could, a seemingly never-ending reserve of tranquility carrying them all through each interminably long day. Hecate wondered how she did it, but knew she would never understand. She and Pippa were simply built differently. Which was why it was such a surprise when, a week into their confinement and long after lights out, Hecate heard a faint tapping at her door and opened it to reveal Pippa, shoulders wrapped in a blanket and looking anything but calm. 

Hecate automatically opened her door wider and ushered Pippa inside, guiding her to the settee by the banked fire smoldering in her fireplace. They sat in silence, Pippa seemingly lost in thought. Hecate was loathed to disturb her, but she conjured up a tea set anyway, pouring Pippa a cup and sitting it in front of her. It was minutes later before Pippa managed to speak. 

"I've just had word from Pentangle's, from my deputy." Pippa paused again and Hecate felt dread building up in her own stomach. She knew whatever Pippa would say next wouldn't be good news. "Three of the girls and my chanting mistress have all come down with it," Pippa said it matter-of-factly but her blank stare looked like it reached all the way back to her academy, as if she could see into her infirmary from so far away. Hecate sucked in a breath as her stomach suddenly dropped out from under her. 

"I…" Hecate reached out and covered Pippa's hand with her own. Pippa trembled lightly. What was Hecate to say to that? 'I'm sorry,' seemed wholly inadequate. She stood and moved over to the settee, settling down next to Pippa. Pippa gripped her hand as if she might go somewhere, as if she might transfer away in the face of Pippa's distress. 

"They're ill and I'm stuck here. _Here._ " Pippa's sudden anger lashed out into the air around them. "I should _be there_." Hecate had never seen Pippa so incensed, not even before the spelling bee when she seethed with emotion. 

"I know…" Hecate licked her lips and tried to choose her words carefully. "I know the need to do something is overwhelming, but there is little you could accomplish there beyond falling ill yourself." 

Pippa's eyes cut over to look at her, her ire in no way abated. "It doesn't matter what I could or couldn't do. I'm the headmistress and I'm being kept away from my school in the middle of a crisis. It isn't right. Those children were placed in my care. I should be there to care for them." Pippa's voice was strained. Hecate untangled their fingers and placed a hand on Pippa's back. Comfort didn't come naturally to her, but clearly Pippa needed something and she was the only person who could provide it. 

She spread her fingers out and tried to impart some of the calm she didn't feel to Pippa. She rubbed her hand up and down. She didn't dare say anything lest it be the wrong thing. The two of them sat in silence for several long minutes before Pippa let out a great sigh and relaxed into Hecate's hand. 

"I'm sorry. It's only that I feel so helpless." Pippa turned and wrapped her arms around Hecate's waist. Hecate stiffened inside her arms, unused to such contact, but she attempted to return Pippa's hug nevertheless. It made her own vague feeling of panic, the feeling she had spent days ignoring, recede a bit and Hecate almost felt guilty for it. She was supposed to be comforting Pippa after all, not the other way around. 

"This will pass and everything will go back to some semblance of normal." Hecate squeezed Pippa a bit closer. "Your pupils will be fine."

"You can't know that." Pippa pressed her face into Hecate's shoulder. Hecate was almost certain Pippa had started crying. She reached up and brushed one of Pippa's tears away with her thumb. Pippa looked up at her and her breath caught in her chest. This was no time for her girlhood crush on Pippa to show itself. She wrestled it away, something to be examined later. 

"I suppose you're correct, but still, it's better to hope for a positive outcome than dwell on the worst-case scenario." Hecate wiped away another tear. Pippa nodded in a resigned way. 

"I know you're right. It's simply difficult to be so cheerful all the time." Until that moment, Hecate hadn't given much thought to how trying it must be on Pippa to put on a good face for the girls all the time. All she could do was keep holding Pippa and perform a small spell to keep the tea from going cold. 

"You needn't be cheerful with me." Hecate ran her fingers through Pippa's hair. Pippa relaxed, the tension finally leaving her body. 

"I know." Pippa put her head more fully on Hecate's shoulder. "Thank you." She finally reached for her tea and took a sip, Hecate's arms still encircling her.

* * *

"I thought you were asleep." Hecate turned from the open window as Pippa stepped through the doorway to the room at the top of the tallest tower at Cackle's. 

"I…" Hecate moved toward the center of the room and clasped her hands together. Pippa had been honest with her earlier. Perhaps she should return the favor. "I haven't been sleeping well." 

Pippa nodded. "I can't imagine it's been easy on you, being trapped again." 

Hecate's eyes went wide. She hadn't thought she had been that transparent, but each hour that passed made her feel like she was being slowly crushed like her skin was being pulled tighter and tighter over her bones. She fell back on old habits. "I don't know what you're–"

"Hecate." Pippa looked at her with undisguised compassion, like she knew how Hecate was feeling but she couldn't possibly. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want, but you don't need to pretend that you're fine when you're not." 

Hecate worried her hands together, looking down at them. Wind swirled in through the windows and Pippa shivered, but neither of them made any move to shut them. 

"I should be used to this," Hecate said it to the floor. Pippa reached out for her hand and Hecate relinquished her grip on her own fingers to tangle them with Pippa's. 

"No one is used to this." Pippa shook her head. "And none of us knows how it feels to finally be granted our freedom only to be stripped of it a second time. It's a wonder that you're functioning at all." For the second time that night, Hecate found herself wrapped in a hug with Pippa's arms around her. She sank into it, chasing that same feeling of peace it had imparted earlier. "I'm only sorry I didn't think about it sooner."

"You had your own things to worry about. The girls… they have to be our first priority." Hecate pulled away from Pippa and straightened her dress, smoothing it down over her stomach and ribs. 

"Of course they do," Pippa said, "but it's two am and they're all asleep. We're allowed to take some time for ourselves as well." Pippa caught Hecate's hand again and used it to pull Hecate toward the window. Hecate wrapped her fingers around the window sill, one hand still ensnared by Pippa's fingers. She took a deep breath of the frigid air, pulling cold, clean oxygen into her lungs and then exhaling it just as slowly. She stared out at the stars and wished desperately to be among them, to be on her broomstick flying as high as she could before the cold and hypoxia force her crashing toward the ground. Anything to be free of Cackle's once again. 

Movement below them caught Hecate's attention, the full weight of her staring bearing down on whoever might be awake at such an hour and slinking across the grounds. She was just raising her hand to transfer before Pippa covered her hand with her own and stopped her. 

"It's just Ada." And so it was. And now that Hecate was watching her, she wasn't slinking, after all, simply walking through the garden, nowhere close to the edge of where the castle's bubble of protection started. "I imagine she's having just as much trouble sleeping as we are." 

Hecate deflated, righteous fury suddenly with nowhere to go. "I thought…"

"I know." Pippa rubbed her hand up Hecate's forearm then tangled their fingers together again, as if she couldn't bear not to touch Hecate for more than a moment. "Maybe it's time to go back to your room and try to sleep," Pippa suggested it gently as if knowing if she tried to be any more forceful Hecate would object. 

"Will you be able to sleep?" Hecate asked, eyes searching Pippa's face for the real answer. 

"I think if I'm with you, I might." Pippa lifted Hecate's hand and kissed the back of her fingers. "There's something I want to talk about when this is all over," Pippa rubbed her thumb over the place she had just kissed. "But for now, transfer us back to your rooms and we'll try."

"Together?" Hecate asked, her head tilted in question. 

"Together," Pippa replied.

**Author's Note:**

> Take care of yourselves, kids.


End file.
